MY Labs Ears

Question
Hello I hope you can help me I have a 3 year old yellow lab who has a brown gunky looking matter in his ears and he digs at them and the smell is bad. We have tried ear mite medicine but it is still there any advice?

Answer
Sounds like an ear infection, characterised by a foul odor and sometimes a brown to milky colored discharge, which will require prescription antibiotics from your veterinarian. Be sure to take him to your vet and don't put anything in the ear canal until your vet has had a look at it. The tympanic membrane, deep inside the ear canal, could possibly be ruptured and if you put certain chemicals in  it will cause deafness if the tympanic membrane is not intact . Also it could be ear mites, Otodectes sp.., which will cause a brown/black waxy substance in the ear. Your veterinarian will have to get a sample and look at it under the microscope to see if it is a mite, and can then give you a prescription to treat it. Hope this helped and hope it isn't anything too serious. Good luck!